As we work to bring even more value to our audience, we’ve made important changes for those who receive Ad Age with our compliments. As of November 15, 2016 we will no longer be offering full digital access to AdAge.com. However, we will continue to send you our industry-leading print issues focused on providing you with what you need to know to succeed.

If you’d like to continue your unlimited access to AdAge.com, we invite you to become a paid subscriber. Get the news, insights and tools that help you stay on top of what’s next.

TONY PETITTI NAMED TO HEAD CBS SPORTS

Plans Expansion of Content Into New-Media Areas

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- As Sean McManus takes the helm at CBS News, he has named Tony Petitti to handle the day-to-day operations at CBS Sports. Previously, Mr. Petitti was an executive producer of CBS Sports; Mr. McManus remains president of CBS Sports as well as CBS News.

Mr. Petitti, a Harvard Law School graduate who cut his teeth in the sports business at ABC and later at CBS, has been Mr. McManus’s right-hand man on talent and programming negotiations and decisions.

“He was as instrumental as I was in helping turn this place around,” Mr. McManus said.

College push
Mr. Petitti, whose title will be exec VP, said his biggest challenge in the coming year will be expanding the network’s sports assets into other new media areas -- “taking the properties we have and pushing them in different areas,” he said. For example, “we’ll find new opportunities and ways to expand what we’re doing with college sports.” CBS Sports is poised to expand its college sports presence thanks to an 11-year, $6 billion National Collegiate Athletic Association rights deal Mr. McManus spearheaded in 1999.

The deal included rights pertaining to the Internet, marketing and corporate sponsorship, merchandising, licensing, cable TV, radio, satellite, digital and home video.

Any such expanded CBS Sports new-media move is likely not only to include new Internet offerings but also video-on-demand programming. The expansion would follow CBS Sportsline's re-launch into a round-the-clock, on-demand broadband video network using original and CBS Sports footage. Earlier this summer CBS News initiated a similarly major reorganization that expanded its Web presence and pushed more broadcast video content to online audience.

Rights negotiations
Also on the agenda for Mr. Petitti will be negotiating an extension to CBS’s right to the PGA Tour and increasing the network’s position in college football.

He all but ruled out acquiring Major League Baseball rights, which expire on Fox in 2006, saying that “while it’ a great property, it’s something that doesn’t interest us. It’s more of a prime-time property in terms of its network profile, and where we’re at network-wise it’s probably something we’re not going to pursue at this time.”